Droplets of Lyrium
by Hawkins437
Summary: A collection of Dragon Age flash fiction, drabbles and vignettes. Pairings noted in the individual chapters. More chapters to come. Requests accepted.
1. Nettlebane

The Breach had been sealed—temporarily; a squinting green scar in the sky. The demons stopped pouring in.

S'raaka Adaar heaved a weary sigh and let her magic fade. She had just saved the world.

Only then did Cassandra Pentaghast cease to call her _the prisoner, _and asked her name.

"S'raaka." the Qunari said.

"Strong. Very tribal." the Seeker responded, for lack of anything better to say.

S'raaka decided not to reveal the true meaning of it.


	2. Toe-curlers

Pairing:** Female Adaar/Sera**

* * *

On a rare occasion S'raaka Adaar giggled.

She had been tickling her feet and pulling at her toes for hours, calling them cutest lil' tubby-wums—whatever that expression meant. Sometimes Sera could descend into unintelligible childish-sort of babble; S'raaka, beside herself, found that adorable.

Qunari or not, she could allow herself to be less than stoic at times.

"And just what is so fascinating about them?" she finally asks.

"You, big burly Qunari; all proportionate-like in places, right? Woof!" Sera fakes wiping droplets of sweat off her brow, swaying as if about to swoon, but briskly attacks the Qunari's feet with tickles as she continues: "Then these teeny toes! Real chubby, too. Cutest thing, yeah?"

"You're very… odd." she says, but cannot help another chuckle.

A yawn from Sera follows. "Boring! Boring words make you old." she pinches her ears, "That hair in there? You sound old, got hair in your ears, so maybe you are."

S'raaka frowns, sitting up to make it a menace, "You're pushing your luck."

But all Sera does is fart with her mouth and smirks, "Luck's not the thing I'm pushing," she says.

They tumble back into their bed and don't leave till servants call for dinner.


	3. Antivan Foursome

Pairing: **Varric Tethras/Bianca Davri**

* * *

When next he sneaks out he's spotted by the carta informers. It's a rare moment when he lowers his guard, but entirely typical of him when he's around her.

Three days later four assassins make their way to The Hanged Man, searching for him, but Bianca finds their hearts first. By the insignia he recognises that the cadavers on his doorstep are Antivan Crows and immediately knows who sent them.

He orders a pint, then another dozen and damns his luck. Love is more trouble than the Merchants' Guild.


	4. Beard-pockets

Pairing: **Female Cadash/Blackwall**

* * *

"So what use does that beard have, short of looking magnificent?" she asks of him one day.

"Sometimes I hide coin in there—silver and coppers for the ale." he says, voice all mysterious, with a hint of a laugh. "Ruffians would never think to shave me."

She chuckles. "And you're far too tall to be grabbed by the ankles and shaken upside down." she helpfully points out, frowning slightly that her own height indisposition leaves her vulnerable to just that.

"Exactly."


	5. Ant Repellent

Pairing: **Female Lavellan/Solas**

* * *

Nature can make for a pesky disruptor of rendezvous, especially when it places a clandestine ant hill nearby. They have gone to the forest seeking secrecy, away from the prying agents of Skyhold's spymaster, away from what could blossom into gossip or scandal. She refused another disembodied tryst in the realm of Fade.

"Do you have a spell to repel ants?" she asks, scratching at the bite sores covering her legs.

"I'm afraid not. If such a spell even exists." he says. "Fortunately, there is a technique…" With a caress of his fingers he closed her eyes, trailing them over her lips and chin, and moved to work at the buckles of her armour.

She grinned, recognising his ruse. "Is there a technique or is it an excuse to get me naked?"

"Ants aren't known to cling to naked bodies, vhenan."

"Ah," she gasped. "Perhaps I should return the favour then."

"It would not be unwelcome."

And so she dragged her fingers along his sides until they found the hem of his sweater and plunged beneath.

* * *

Naked, they tumbled into the grass, cheeks flushed with the heat of love-making. Until… a single sting, an impatient slap and a frown.

"Didn't you say they don't cling to naked bodies?"

"I thought my bluff was obvious." he smirked, but her voice carries a hint of annoyance.

"I'd hoped you were above such tricks."

"Ma vhenan, I know tricks aplenty, and if you're patient, I will share."

Mind hazed with passion, a smirk gracing her lips, she briskly wondered whether she had any wits left for devising an inventive punishment before resolving to simply kiss him breathless.


	6. Leechery

Pairing: **Female Cadash/Blackwall**

* * *

"Is there a particular reason you asked _me_ to do this?" she asked, observing the writhing mess clinging to his thighs with some disgust. "Or is visual torture a recent trend in erotica?"

"I've no shame in before you, my lady." he answers in his gruff voice.

"Odd, since from where I'm standing this is nothing but shameful." There is a slight frown on her face, along with reluctance; he resorts to pleading out of desperation.

"Please," he yelps, willing this to be over with.

Still she protests, "What makes you think I'm an expert on leeches anyhow—my kind lives _underground._ The healers should know a way…"

"What more could it take but a strong arm?" he interrupts, conscious of her evasion. "You certainly don't lack for that."

She sighs, "We'll see." Grimacing, she takes the first of the slick bloodsuckers between her fingers and wrings it free. The sound that escapes his throat is unseemly of a man of his age and size—it resembles a shriek of a child having its tooth pulled out.

"Maker's balls," he curses. "You are a menace."

She throws the vermin into the fireplace before it can bury its hooked teeth into her flesh, then sternly gestures to the door. "Take it to the healer."

He pulls up his breeches swiftly, like a lover caught during a tryst with a nobleman's wife. "At once," he says.


	7. Rainy Skies

Pairing: **Female Cadash/****Blackwall** as observed by **Cole**.

* * *

_"The name breaks free, pulls the pain with it. A black wall to shield the self when the sky is rainier."_ – Cole

* * *

Thunder tears the sky, mud splashing, sardonic echo of sputters and steel, voices of children singing away their deaths to the rhythm of clinking gold. Ghosts seize the mind with clattering.

Hooves belittle the pain, mountains diminutive on horizon, wind crackling my teeth, racing away the memory of warmth, spread out and sweat-soiled, smelling like forge and mint oil. Under callus muscles taut from swordplay. Limbs rocking into each other, lips dragging on skin, hair like sunburst in the candlelight; a note says: _I am deeply sorry._

Hands snaking up, combing hair like ringlets of dirt, lips full of bruising sweetness, fingers that feel like rope around the neck. Pain not of raking nails at his back.

_I buy the honour with a hangman's noose, deliver us from the lie. _Assurances cradled by sincerity, but the pain… Why kindle dead man's pain?

Come, Liddy, play by fire…

* * *

Gentle, calming, smell of hay and fire, a memory of soft whines from my father's kennel, Endrin's wet snout against my palm. Stolen kisses without love, wanton but not wanting, a hitched up skirt—I never like to wear them. Short sighs before midnight. He said I didn't care for dwarven ways, but it's him who couldn't care. A whole other lifetime.

Hardened fingers twining, catching hair, quiet rasps against the neck that form the words: _my lady_. The beard tickles where she's soft, teasing the embers inside. Then eternity.

Eyes hazed by the silver light, moon snarling at her lullaby. Shivers in the bone, pressing against the wall that is gone. Gone. Where has he gone?

* * *

**A/N: **_This was my first try at capturing Cole's voice, and so I would appreciate any and all feedback on the matter. Thanks for reading._


	8. The Hare Leg

Pairing:** Female Lavellan/Solas**

* * *

When she finds she is with child, she cries for days and refuses company. Though Cassandra offers comfort and Sera confronts her with care masked for scorn there is little that would ease the pain. In those first weeks she feels keenly the emptiness left in the wake of his disappearance. Her dreams are tormented by spirits taking on his form and without any magic to control the Fade she has no means to shoo them away.

When he is born, she names him _Enansal_—_blessing_—because despite her grief she can see so much of his father in those contemplative eyes.

As he grows she begins to see herself in those shy smiles and the freckles peppering his skin, but his eyes are forever his and his mind just as studious.

When he is five he begins to show signs of magic. She teaches him what his father taught her of the Fade, but it is Vivienne who teaches him first spells. That spring he conjures flakes of snow that soar through air as a butterfly to perch atop Vivienne's nose, and the Iron Lady's heart melts in spite of all.

His mother has no magic knowledge to pass onto him. Instead, she teaches him archery and he delights in setting his arrows afire, sending them searing the sky. She teaches him the Dalish lore only for Sera to scoff and tell him it's stupid over a bottle of brandy while he sips his tea.

He hates tea.

He's fifteen when he takes his first lover. He no longer listens to his mother's tales and rarely admits to being her son to people who don't know. He is embarrassed of her fame, embarrassed of his name. Contemptuous of the Inquisition's might overshadowing his. Brash and youthful he's ready to prove himself, but even so his love for mother keeps him at her side.

He begins to spend time in the woods. He practices his magic, hunts with a bow. He dreams in the Fade and communes with the spirits. He studies animals; he's fond of wolves.

In his nineteenth year he leaves Skyhold for adventure. He embraces his mother and wipes away her tears, she kisses him on both cheeks and implores him to be careful. He smirks and she knows immediately that her advice shall go ignored. Sera gives him a hare leg for a good luck charm, he keeps it around his neck on a leather cord. She reminds him not to be too elfy and he starts speaking in elvish just to spite her. She jabs him in the ribs; he pulls her ears.

A year later he meets a cloaked apostate with a strange melody to his voice. A familiar pair of eyes stare at him like from a mirror.

The man introduces himself with his father's name.


	9. Patrician

Pairing:** Female Trevelyan/Cullen**

* * *

Sometimes Cullen quite forgets that the Inquisitor is a noble.

But when he undresses her and happens upon these frilly panties of woven spider silk, embroidered with Antivan lacework and Rivaini metallic threads, laced up by silky pink ribbons at her sides, he smirks to himself as if doing something sacrilege.

He alternates between groping for the ribbons at her sides like a little boy unwrapping the Feast Day presents, and slowly, carefully loosening the crisscross patterns with reverence.

"Cullen?" she says, her voice sweet but firm.

He looks up and in his eyes she can see the anxiety of a young Templar recruit pooling in, embedded even after all the years gone past.

Gently, her lips brush against his cheek and dissolve in a whisper: "I have another six pairs of these."

"Y-yes?" he stutters, every bit a youngster he was then.

"Tear them off."

His cheeks flush with red. But like a dutiful young Templar he obliges, eagerly.


	10. Burdens Buried

Pairing: **Female Cadash/Former Lover** &amp; **Female Cadash/Blackwall**

* * *

Sometimes she stares at the emptiness of her finger and her eyes move miles beyond Skyhold, over the mists of present into the dead waters of the past.

Curiosity wins over tact when he watches her, for the third time that week, twirl a band of gold between her fingers, reminiscing about times long over.

"Were you married, my lady?"

"Not quite."

A chest of her personal belongings arrived to Skyhold with the last week's trade caravan, sent by the few of her remaining Carta friends; among them a journal, family heirlooms—the remainders of former glory of the House Cadash, a carved toy of a paragon whose name she could not recall, a silverite locket with her mother's likeness locked inside of it, an ornate hair pin.

An engagement ring…

She can still feel the flutter of his beard against her lips when he left for the thaig. _Amgetoll._

"He left for the Deep Roads—recover old glory. He never recovered."


	11. Necromance

Pairing: **Female Inquisitor/Sera**

* * *

They've been playing a game of Wicked Grace, just the two of them. Not for coppers or silver, not even hard gold sovereigns or Orlesian royals; clothes were their currency in the privacy of the Inquisitor's chambers.

"It's only a skull." the Inquisitor retorts, her eyes barely darting towards what she perceived as only a ornamental tool of her magic. The once casket of reason of some man or another now rests on the fireplace mantle, its eye sockets glow with jewels and a dim aura of lyrium, the bones polished and adorned with runes wrought in golden threads. It is alive with a low hum of a spirit residing within, something only a mage could perceive.

"Not true. You did weird magic things to it and now it's staring. Creepy. See the creeps it's giving me?" the elf protests, waving her arms in the mage's face, all covered in goose-bumps, hair rising to attention.

"It's the chill, Sera." she says, pointing out several open windows and the waning embers inside the fireplace that she would otherwise stir into a flame with magic.

"Is not!"

Near naked as she is, the elf springs from her seat, stomping her bare feet—a gesture as unconvincing as it is childish.

The Inquisitor nearly lets out a sigh, "You're being silly."

"Am not!" she insists, grunting, "Ugh, cover it up or something!"

The other woman rises, her steps brisk and sound; although scowling, her annoyance is merely a pretence, a snare planted for Sera to lose her guard. The firm grip of her hands is on the elf's hips as she unlaces her garish plaideweave underpants and throws them at the skull.

"How's that for covering it up?" she smirks.

The elf cackles, as expected, and continues to laugh and snort hysterically even as they both fall onto the bed, bare bodies pressed against one another.


	12. Ribbons and Cream

"You fight like a woman!" the dwarf bellows as he strikes.

At once his cuirass feels too tight to breathe in. His ears start ringing with a familiar voice, his breath constricted by a lump in his throat that feels impossible to swallow.

"You are Cremisia, my little girl—you should like sewing, wear ribbons in your hair. Enough with this boyish nonsense!"

He blocks the next strike half-heartedly as images flash before his eyes. His youth, his mother's shame.

Maker, did he hate the ribbons.

"I gave birth to a baby girl!" she yelled. "You're a grown woman, Cremisia, you will leave these childish whims, at once! You will wear this dress and you will marry the boy. Our livelihood depends on you."

And so it did—she took his pay readily enough when he joined the army out of _boyish whim, _thanks to the _silly pretence. _The hypocrisy.

_He doesn't know, _he realises. _It's just a jab._

All the same, he puts all his strength behind the shield bash.

"That's more like it, laddie!" the dwarf laughs.


	13. The Peacock

Pairing: **Female Trevelyan/Dorian**

* * *

The kiss he gifts her with is cold as the touch of ice spell. Try as he might, he cannot stir within himself the passion for her—for women. She is all anyone could desire—a beauty, a noble, a character, an icon. His parents might have approved the union.

Yet, but for the friendly warmth within, his heart is crisp with a steely chill.

Flavour of her lips is faint, timid. Probing, unsure expectations. He wishes not to hurt her.

"Dorian?"

He never desired to be with a woman; for her, he tried. But he cannot repay their playful flirts with anything other than friendship.

"Forgive me."

He leaves her standing in the library, veiled in confusion under the guise of night.

The confusion he lifts the day after, when she accompanies him to Redcliffe, to see his father. The truth liberates them both.

"I prefer the company of men. My father disapproves."

She squeezes his hand when the need for flight settles in, steadying him just enough to let reason deafen his instincts. Then she allows their hurts have privacy.

That day moulds her into the closest friend he's had.


	14. Wolf in the Shadows

Pairing: **Solas/Female Hunter Lavellan** (non-mage)

* * *

He watches her, bare-faced and bare, as with light, weary steps she enters the Enavuris River, washing the daily encumbrances of her station away.

It used to be that he'd travel the Dales with her, telling her lies of what he saw in the Fade, when in truth he was there to witness it.

It used to be that he'd caress her cheeks softly before pulling her in for a kiss, whether in Fade or reality.

It used to be that he never had to hide his presence from her, even as he concealed his intent.

Now he is a wounded wolf cowering in the bushes nearby, whimpering quietly at the sight of his lost love. A reminder that good still remains in the world, yet still he would reshape it. For her, for all elvhen.

She swims in the river, peaceful, even as her eyes dart to the shore, ever alert.

He knows his presence is unknown to her—she is no mage. A truth that breaks his heart more than anything—his actions have severed that which was as inherent to his people as breathing. To him living without magic is like traipsing blind along the twisted, thorn-surrounded path. Sorrowful.

_Ir abelas._

She cannot know that he intends to destroy the world a second time to mould a better one. She would not stand for it, and he could not bear to witness his actions destroy her.

It pains him to think he'll never get to hold her in his arms again, but the path he chose is the one he must walk alone.

There is but one thing to say before he is gone from her life forever…

_Dareth shiral._


End file.
